Advertisement

Retail group says FBI backs PIN use in chip-based cards

(Reuters) - The National Retail Federation (NRF) said on Friday the Federal Bureau of Investigation's warning on the new chip-based credit cards being vulnerable to fraud backed its stand on the need for a personal identification number instead of a signature.

The FBI said on Thursday the chip-based cards can be counterfeited using stolen card data, and that the chip will likely not stop stolen or counterfeit credit cards from being used for online or telephone purchases. (http://1.usa.gov/1L2NerG)

Virtually all of the chip cards being issued in the United States are chip-and-signature rather than chip-and-PIN, the industry group said on Friday. (http://bit.ly/1L3VpUO)

About 40 percent of payment card terminals at U.S. merchants, a category that includes retailers, taxi drivers and doctors, had been upgraded by Oct. 1 to meet the deadline set by credit card companies to install chip-card readers or face increased fraud liability.

The NRF said it submitted testimony to a congressional committee on Wednesday arguing in favor of PIN over signature.

(Reporting by Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)